Ted Honderich on Philosophy

Philosophy is flourishing. It is not only an ancient subject, but a young one, growing in front of you. And the new edition of the Oxford Companion to Philosophy is full of articles that capture the new trends and issues. Ted Honderich gives a taste of the hundreds of new things that keep the Companion at the sharp edge of philosophical thought...

You would expect to find internet philosophy in the new edition. But when you go to have a look, you are likely to be distracted by the entry world philosophy. Who could resist a glance at a snappy summary of the whole lot? Then, by a slip of a finger on a page, you may find yourself detained by zombies. Just what, you ask, is that new item doing in a respectable philosophy book?

Having satisfied yourself, and found your way to internet, philosophy on the, you are indeed briskly enlightened as to that subject. You will of course be tempted to turn your attention to inverted spectrum. And then Islamic Philosophy Today after Islamic Philosophy.

This sort of experience will confirm that the book remains a browser's delight, maybe a browser's happy downfall. It will also educate you a little more. Zombies have a conceptually useful existence in the current philosophy of mind. The inverted spectrum is the idea of your seeing red where I see blue, but the relevant bits of the rest of our lives staying the same. Also useful.

If science is pushing in on some of its old topics - to my mind usually disastrously - philosophy is also doing some elbowing. The part of it that is the Philosophy of Mind is to the fore these days. And so the Companion also has cognitive architecture in it, not to mention the frame problem. The first of those is about the organization of the mind as it was and is conceived. The second is about the difficulty of replicating human intelligence by use of a computer programme.

Political philosophy adds ableism to the book, this being a prejudice against people with disabilities, and also anti-Semitism and markets and the public good. The Philosophy of Science has in it science, the diversity of, which needed to be added to the unity of science.

So with every part, section and category of philosophy, Aesthetics now includes contemporary art. The Philosophy of Religion has an entry on Buddha himself. The Philosophy of Mathematics is improved by foundationalism.

Moral Philosophy includes ethics and the family, and vices, and pornography. Metaphysics is enriched by the addition of counterpart theory. Logic is better for free logics and model theory. Epistemology catches up on clear and distinct ideas and non-conceptual content. The Philosophy of Language now has in it langue and parole and the Philosophy of Science crucial experiments.

Where do I stop? As a summary, I'm afraid, this is a failure! It left out philosophy publishing, and the end of philosophy, and Schleiermacher, and Wittgenstein Reconsidered, and some new contemporary philosophers who arrive in the new edition, and....